I booked Gary in early 2017 for our September 2018 wedding at Horizon View Farms. He was the recommended DJ by their coordinator, Sara, at Exquisite Event Planners. I had asked Sara many times about Gary because throughout the end of 2017 to our wedding day, I told her I felt Gary was not very organized or responsive. She claimed that Gary was very familiar with the woods, had a generator for it, and was very good at keeping things on track. Since it was a peculiar venue I took her word for it that he was a vendor very familiar and comfortable there. However, despite my questions to the coordinator the morning of the wedding as I was getting ready they advised that Gary is no longer on their recommendations for DJs for a year now before our wedding.

Things that went wrong:
• He was not organized in the handful of months leading up to the wedding.
• We found out in the last month before the wedding that Gary does not have basic software like PowerPoint.
• He called during our wedding weekend once we go to the venue for clean-up and set up to go over the plan – too soon before the wedding to check on things. He was going over things we discussed weeks and months ago and that was also laid out in a timeline. I grew anxious because his demeanor and professionalism was not reassuring to us that he knew how to be a DJ.
• I advised I could have an extra canopy available at the ceremony site so his laptop would be protected. My friend drove it down to the woods when we were told it might mist. Then he refused it and worked out of his van away from the ceremony. He could not see anything even with his assistant actually in the woods.
• Because he was not in the woods no one saw my cousin singing for the pre-ceremony – they had no idea where the voice was coming from since she had to be hidden.
• He played the wrong song after our first kiss as husband and wife as we walked down the aisle for our recessional. I even stopped and said it was wrong out loud to my husband. Gary started to play the correct song half way down the aisle instead. We tried to laugh it off, but it became a series of events like this throughout the day.
• I was told by the coordinator and the DJ himself during the reception that he was used to being by a window rather at the DJ table closer to the dancefloor where all the other DJs usually are.
• I had to do a lot of DJ work myself that ended up not being used. Instead of using the songs that I downloaded for him myself – pre-ceremony, processional, recessional, cocktail hour, reception entrance, brunch music, over 20 guests requests from our reply cards, dancing music, any extra songs if we had time, etc. He seemed to go rogue.
• Not playing the guests requests made us the most upset. Here we took the time to include the question on our reply cards, I noted who asked for which songs, I sent them to Gary already downloaded, and he still didn’t think I wanted them played.
• Gary said there were certain songs on our list that he did not know so that’s why he played the wrong versions – what DJ doesn’t know oldies as well as current music or at least takes the time to figure out what the correct version is or ask?
• He announced that there was a mother-daughter dance when he knew we just had father-daughter and mother-son dances – slideshows for the other parents.
• He could not hit play for PowerPoint slideshows I put together. We brought the projector, laptop, stand, etc. – all he had to do was hit play.
• Gary also sang vocal to songs that we did not discuss. We did discuss him performing live music on this saxophone during cocktail hour.
• He played three slow songs in a row that killed the mood for dancing for far too long.
• Gary did not play our last song for the night to end the actual reception.
• More than a few vendors felt that he was not a good partner and did not lead the reception well.
We specifically highlighted which songs we wanted to play for the ceremony, cocktail hour, for dancing (like the FOB’s favorite song) and leaving the rest for if we had time. It is ridiculous that a bride has to use days and weeks converting songs to MP3 to send to the DJ so he has less prep work to do, the right songs to play for a wedding, and still he did not comply. Brides put a lot of work and thought into weddings so to have those events brushed off as any other last minute get-together is unprofessional.

Responsiveness: 2 out of 5
Professionalism: 1 out of 5
Flexibility: 2 out of 5
Experience/skill: 2 out of 5
Value: 3 out of 5